Ball & Plate System

The Ball and Plate Control System is controlled by NI LabView using a NI interface card and demonstrates a classic control problem of balancing a sphere on a flat surface and maintaining its position. It can then be programmed to make the ball describe a circular or any other shaped path around the plate. The unique electromagnetic table actuation enables the study of this unstable system in real-time using sophisticated controllers in NI LabView. The progressive nature of the student exercises enables the study of the problem from first principles to more advanced control concepts. The product provides a useful insight into control engineering at all levels of undergraduate study and enables advanced users to model and control the Ball and Plate using their own strategy.

Features

• Intriguing control experiment
• Progressive student exercises
• Enables study of real-time control of a non-linear & unstable process
• Implementation of digital control techniques using NI LabVIEW
• Ball position sensing & image processing using USB camera
• Open and closed loop configurations
• Fully assembled plant with integral power supply
• Open architecture, design-orientated system
• Suitable for undergraduate courses in electrical, electronic and mechanical engineering
• Comprehensive theory & experiment manual

Curriculum Coverage

• Non-linear model simplification
• Non-linear model testing
• Model linearization
• Plant control
• PID controllers
• Plate orientation control
• PID control of plate orientation
• Real-time PID control
• 1-D PID control of ball position
• 2-D PID control of ball position
• Real-time trajectory tracking with ball